December 30, 2010

At the Christmas lunch I received these lovely oven gloves with the motive of the Danish dairy cow named Karoline. I got them by one of my oldest girlfriends back from university. She had her mother sewing those for me and another friend as hostess gifts. I just love them :-))

December 29, 2010

Instead of the usual Danish Christmas lunch (aquavit, marinated herrings, fried fish, ham, red cabbage, Danish pate, cheese etc), my girlfriends and I decided this year to have Christmas tapas created by my local cheese "pusher".
However, the Christmas aquavit was still an important ingredient, even though the food was replaced with different slices of Parma ham and sausages, pate and some very good tasting cheeses.

I really enjoy this annual Christmas lunch with the girlfriends (after both a busy December month and some busy Christmas days), where I have the feeling of saying goodbye to Christmas with pleasure looking forward to an approaching new year in the company of some very good freinds, while eating, drinking, talking and laughing.

The garden lion was as well very keen to participate doing his best to steal some sausages without luck. Even the black olives were in danger of being eaten by Hannibal the cat.
The history ended today, while I was at work, and the cat "killed"/smashed the butter bowl, while eating butter. How the cat can both smell and locate butter in a closed butter bowl is beyond my imagination.

December 26, 2010

I got these small cooking pots from Le Creuset as a Christmas gift from my parents. They can be used for baking or freezing or as serving pots. I used them at lunch time for baked potato mash with hazelnuts, uuuhmmm. And I just love the different colours.

The Christmas aquavit is ready to welcoming my Christmas guests. I removed the orange peels today and pour the aquavit into glass bottles. The flavour notes are wonderful. I prefer to drink aquavit either cold or very cold, meaning taking the aquavit from the freezer just before drinking it.

One of my girlfriends brought this lovely hostess gift for me in connection with my gløgg (mulled wine) evening Monday. I am always impressed, when people can make flower decorations like this. My talent for this is limited to placing some candles on a tray with some moss.

Thank you very much Belle, I will enjoy this Christmas decoration in the coming days :-))

December 19, 2010

Tomorrow evening I will be hosting a gløgg evening for some good girl friends from my local town. So this afternoon I have been busy preparing the gløgg extract as well as some Christmas candy in form of soft nougat.

Instead of the usual gløgg based on red wine, I will serving a gløgg based on white wine, which I find to be more refreshing, even when is cool down.

I have been using a selection of spices such as cinnamon, ginger, cardamon etc. Put the spices into tea bags, which is added into the non-alcoholic part of the gløgg. The non-alcoholic part is one part of elderflower cordial and one part of apple juice. The spices should be in the liquid night over. I will post the exact recipe in the coming week.

Meanwhile I will share the recipe on soft nougat (Nougat konfekt):

Ingredients:

100 g soft nougat

50 g dark chocolate

50 g hazelnuts

40 g orange peel

Nougat and dark chocolate is melted in the microwave oven in a Tupperware Microplus pot. Apply 800 W - start with 40 seconds, take the pot out, stir the content together - give it another 20 seconds, stir the content together - give it more time in the microwave oven, until it is melt. Give it less and less in the microwave oven, as you do not want the chocolate to be burned.

Grind the orange peel and the hazelnuts together in a mini blender. The hazelnuts should be fine chopped.

Add the orange peel and hazelnuts together with the melted nougat. Mix it well together.

Afterwards pour this mass into a silicone form. Place the silicone form in the refrigerator and let is cool. When the nougat is firm again, the soft nougat can be removed from the form. Store the nougat candy cold, until you will eat it.

December 18, 2010

This afternoon and evening I have been working on creating, making and baking this almond orange, which recipe I have got from the magazine Alt for Damerne. The creator of this recipe is Mai Knauer - Sweet Nothing, and you have give it a try your self: Almond orange cake recipe by Mai Knauer

Meanwhile, you have look at these pictures from my baking process. Unfortunately I am not able to share the lovely smell of oranges and mint. The smell is just gorgeous.

I will be serving this cake for my guest coming Monday evening for gløgg.

During the cooking time of two hours for the two organic oranges, I noticed that the colour of the water changed from clear to light orange. And the smell of orange was surrounding me in the kitchen. From time to time I add extra water in the cooking pot, as the water was evaporating.

Almonds without skin- removal of skin is time consuming

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Almonds ready for grinding in my Tupperware grinder/mill

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Almond flour

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Cutting the oranges is like cutting warm butter

Dried apricot, being organic also means no clear orange colour

Mint - I love the smell and taste of mint. It reminds me about summertime

When I was out shopping this morning for the week-end as well as finding one of the last Christmas gifts for the family, I found four different Christmas gifts for my very own kitchen :-))

I found three Kusmi limited edition cans for 2010 with Russian dolls, and as we getting close moving from 2010 to 2011 I decided to buy all three cans in one go !!!! And when I was looking for fresh mint for almond-orange cake in a supermarket, I found a dessert cook book by Mette Blomsterberg, which when found it's way into the shopping basket. I really love to see the various programme called "Det søde liv" with Mette Bomsterberg on TV, so now I can sit a look into fantastic looking desserts, uuhmmm,

December 13, 2010

My Christmas is getting more and more yellow in colour as it maturing for Christmas. It is now half through it's maturation time.﻿ Uuhmmmm, I am looking forward to smell and taste it by the various Christmas lunches with family and friends.

December 12, 2010

After ½ days soaking of the walnuts & raisins in cognac and cranberries in Cointreau, I blended these fillings prior to mixing it with the marzipan. I was a bit surprised about the ration between filling and marzipan, 200 g walnuts & raisins to be mixed with 150 g marzipan. I normally use more marzipan and less filling, so it will interesting to taste. The marzipan mix was also much more moist than usual for my Christmas Candy.

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Afterwards I rolled the mixed marzipan into smaller balls, which I when coated with 70% dark chocolate. I used the microwave for melting the chocolate in one of my many Tupperware plastic things.

It did actual take quiet some time for the chocolate to dry, close to 2 hours !!!! Perhaps due, that the marzipan was so moist.

Now I just have to be patient until Christmas before tasting these Valnødkugler & Tranebærkugler

December 11, 2010

I have found two Christmas Candy recipes with marzipan in a small recipe collection made by Mai Knauer. I will be making Valnøddekugler (Walnut Marzipan Candy) and Tranebærkugler (Cranberry Marzipan Candy) tomorrow. However, you have to start ½ day (night over) in advance, as walnuts and raisins need to soak in rum (I will use cognac), and the cranberries need to soak in Cointreau. I keep saving the small bottles of liqueur collected from my various flights around Europe for different kitchen activity like this.

December 09, 2010

If you are brave, I mean really brave with exposing your Tupperware Microplus cooker to danger of damage, I have this very easy recipe on burnt almonds from my cousin (former Tupperware consultant). You need to be brave AND any damage to your Tupperware plastic thing is NOT covered by the usual Tupperware guarantee !!!!

Intrigued ?????

Ingredients:

200 g almonds

6 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons water

Almond mix before cooking

All the ingredients are mixed together in the Tupperware Microplus cooker

Place the cooker in the microwave oven and cook at 750 watt for 2 minutes

Take the cooker out and stir around

Cook a second round at 750 watt for 1 minute and 50 seconds

Pour the mass out on baking paper

Save your Tupperware Microplus cooker - place it in cold water AT ONCE in order to avoid damage to it from the boiling sugar